


us, colliding

by vsyubs



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Not a Tragedy I Swear, Past Lives, Repeatedly Dying and Coming Back to Life, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vsyubs/pseuds/vsyubs
Summary: He knew him. He'll know him.





	us, colliding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seungsols](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seungsols/gifts).



> the first draft had angels this one has.. [insert word here]. to clear things up: there are 2 different timelines, 2 different universes. i haven't written in a long while so forgive the length ;( this helped me get off my ass though. when boogyus help u be more productive. dear recipient, i hope u enjoy. have a safe holiday whatever u may be doing <3

_5:03 P.M, JULY 1998_

One summer when the horizon is a smattering of magenta and it smells like True Blue, Boo Seungkwan dies.

There is an incessant headache that was stronger than he thought he could handle. There is a cloud of cigarette smoke, taking him back to nights at his grandma’s front porch while she went through the whole pack after dinner and he strummed nothings on his guitar. There is the red mailbox and gaudy pink flamingo on someone’s front lawn that tell him home is only a block away. A magpie struts past his feet, past the plastic bags of groceries dangling by his shins. It stops at the edge of where concrete meets street and gives him a beady brown stare. 

Seungkwan blinks and it soars off into the trees. He squints at its black and white shape between the leaves, sun frying the top of his skull _ _ _.___

_My head really hurts. I should’ve worn a hat._

His vision blurs then. He begins to cough. Three seconds and his breathing comes completely undone. Shallower and shallower it goes, jagged and desperate. Waves of painful hysteria coming and going; loud and useless and terrifying sounds; the dry heat choking him whole. His eyes feel like they’re going to pop out, plop on the ground and roll away. Red and red and white. 

His knees buckle; he goes down on them. He collapses, cheek first into concrete. At some point, within the eye of his panic, he wonders why his body is fighting so hard to stay alive. 

He expected a reel of his twenty-year life, moments falling one by one behind unclosing cod-eyes like dominos, or shuffled like a stack of cards, but all there is is a cold, blank dark. 

_5:03 P.M, JULY 1998_

There are five things on Seungkwan’s to-do list today and he won’t get to four of them. He blames Hansol and the winter wind. In his hand is a newly-bought cup of latte. 

“I hate you.”

The truth is that it isn’t Hansol’s fault. Never is. “You asked me.”

It’s easier to stick the target on someone else that’s not the actual person, though. “I know.” 

Seungkwan’s got a bruise blooming on his shin for climbing out the window too fast, but it feels better than keeping count of how many plates are smashed or how much louder his mom can get than his dad. Hansol knows better than to ask; maybe he doesn’t want to hear it. Well, neither does Seungkwan.

Seungkwan asks, “Why aren’t you on some mountainside getting frostbite right now?” 

Hansol swallows his mouthful of sandwich. Crumbs collect in the corners of his mouth. “Joshua’s family’s visiting their sick old relative. Dad didn’t wanna rent a cabin for just the four of us.” 

“Lame.”

“That’s what I thought too, but I think it’d get kinda lonely.”

It happens in a flash, but slow all at once, like Seungkwan has come to find most things do. Someone whizzing past, a misplaced comet going faster than everyone else at the plaza, leaving behind a distant “Sorry!” Their red tie flapping in the wind; the sharpness of cologne; and a soft tinkle, echoing and vanishing. 

Hot liquid seeps through Seungkwan’s thick cable-knit sweater. Seungkwan starts yelling. Hansol hurriedly gives him his sandwich wrap to wipe with. 

“Fuck,” Seungkwan snaps. His stomach contracts with the pain. “Jesus Christ.” 

“You okay?” 

Seungkwan shoves the sandwich wrap into Hansol’s coat pocket. He sips his latte. His hands tremble. He cries and blames it on the burn. 

Later, when he cries again on a bench under a naked oak tree, Hansol’s hand on his shoulder, he’ll blame it on the guy that spilled his fucking drink all over his front. 

_5:21 P.M, JULY 1998_

A silvery chime breaking dim silence, and then a voice breaking everything else. 

“Hey. Hey!” 

Slowly, the air warms. 

Seungkwan heaves in a breath, eyes snapping open, fish out of water. Hot air shoots up his mouth and into his lungs. The concrete is rough and sun-hot on his skin. His scalp’s burning. An odd white film lingers behind his eyes, spills milk over the tree leaves, the grass, the sky. 

_Did I die? Did I die?_

Seungkwan gains his breath back in a series of coughs. He gets on his feet, a little rushed. The world wobbles. He sways right into someone’s arms.

“I got you, I got you.” 

He swallows dryly, looks down and around him. “Fuck.” His groceries are _everywhere_. 

“You should not be standing.” Gently, he is guided to sit on the curb. The grass is the thick-leafed kind, warm and soft under his thin pants. “Here.” A bottle of water comes into view, mountains slapped in front of a blue sky. “Drink slowly.”

Seungkwan takes it, heart pounding heavy. Being alive again is mushy and piercing. 

“Don’t move, okay?” 

Goosebumps dot his arms when he lifts it to take a swig of water. His t-shirt feels too sticky on his body. Somehow, he finds the strength to peel it off and turn it into a head cover. 

“I thought you were a goner,” the voice says, a little out of breath. “What happened?” 

It booms raspily, but there’s a softness in it; pebbles and down feathers. 

Seungkwan shrugs.

“Okay, well, tell me if you feel worse. I’ll go get your stuff.”

It aches a bit, somewhere in Seungkwan’s chest. 

Around the stranger’s pinky is a gold ring. He spares Seungkwan a glance, picking up a peach and putting it delicately into the bag it fell out of. Seungkwan decides he will call him John Doe.

“Nice ring.”

John’s face teems with practiced restraint over some feeling Seungkwan has yet to know. “This old thing.”

Seungkwan’s temples throb and swim. He tries to breathe through it. “Have we met?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t live here.”

Birds chirp over the tinny ringing in his ears. Someone’s TV rambles and mumbles from inside a house across the street. A woman yells something nondescript, faraway. The cigarette lingers. 

“Maybe it’s just me, then.” 

“Should I get an ambulance?” John’s voice floats. 

“Don’t,” Seungkwan replies. “They’d just call my mom and I’d never be let out anymore.”

“You live with your mom?”

“And my little sister. Never met my dad.” 

“Ah. Right.” 

Seungkwan exhales slow. He picks at the frayed hem of his t-shirt because the squelching in his temples is going to make him pass out. “Are you gonna walk me home?” 

John quickly finishes tying up one plastic bag, then the other, before standing. “Might as well.” 

There’s something awkward about his full height, as if he doesn’t quite know how to carry that much of himself. It makes Seungkwan almost smile. 

Somewhere on earth, snow is falling.

They make it past the third streetlamp on that long stretch of pavement when John stops in his tracks. Seungkwan bumps into his back. 

“Ow,” he grouses.

John puts the bags down and lowers himself into a half squat. “Get on.”

Seungkwan rubs his sweaty forehead. “What?”

“You can’t walk,” John says. “I’ll carry you.”

Seungkwan gets on. 

“Your legs are shaking,” John mutters, moments later. The sun’s stubbornly hanging on to the horizon. 

Seungkwan’s head’s spinning but he feels invincible, legs dangling. Suddenly he’s six again and he’s warm under the covers reading dinosaur books after his mom leaves for bed. 

“What happened back there?”

A strangely frigid breeze cuts through. Seungkwan’s eyes slip shut.

“Who knows.”

_A LITTLE BIT BEFORE MIDNIGHT, JULY 1998_

Everyone at home was asleep, so Seungkwan goes out to the park to read. This time he does not forget his flashlight or his socks.

Seungkwan can’t recall what today’s fight was about. It seems that the reasons don’t really matter anymore, these days. His brother's got friends and supplementary classes – he’s all right. He always somehow is, but maybe spending more and more time at someone else's place does that to you, even if it's temporary. Temporariness becomes desperate routine becomes permanence. Seungkwan brushes snow off the bench to sit and sticks the flashlight behind his ear. 

Thirteen pages pass before there’s footsteps, getting closer. Someone mumbles something incoherent and Seungkwan feels the nudge of pepper spray in his left pocket. 

“Um. Excuse me. I believe we bumped into each other earlier.”

Seungkwan’s heart leaps. He looks up; light pierces the stranger’s eyes and he winces, stumbling backwards. 

“Slip of the tongue. It was all me.”

His red tie lies flat against his front. His hair’s snow-dusted. Seungkwan grips his book, chest pounding. “How’d… um. Okay.”

“I got out of work late. I was at the tram stop and thought I saw you walking towards the park and remembered I had spilled your drink over that morning and decided to follow you to make sure, and that if it was you I’d apologise.” The stranger shields his face with his hands, furrowed brows peeking through the spaces between his fingers. “Looks right I was right, and I’m sorry, and I would like to make it up to you.” 

Seungkwan laughs nervously. “What… what are you talking about? Make it up to me?”

“Coffee. You had one when I crashed into you. You like coffee?”

“Yes, I'm – wait, wait, wait, I don’t know shit about you. And neither do you me.” Seungkwan lowers his flashlight; the guy flashes him a grateful look. 

“Well, you just told me one thing about yourself.”

Their eyes meet, the guy’s sharp ones mimicking Seungkwan’s own, and a small ringing starts in Seungkwan’s left ear and travels to the right. 

“Guess it’s only fair you tell me something about yourself, then," Seungkwan says, a warm tumbling in his stomach. "Ah, look. I’ve played right into your hands.”

The guy grins. Two crooked teeth, brighter than the rest, jut out on either side.

_UNDETERMINED (CLOCK OUT OF SIGHT – DID I TAKE IT DOWN?), JULY 1998_

Seungkwan wakes up in bed the next afternoon with a fever and a few memories.

John smelled like the sun – the same musty, burnt sugar Seungkwan would catch a whiff of from his sister’s hair when they’ve spent too long playing outside and the sky’s cloudless, back when they were way smaller. Maybe it’s not too late to pick up from where they left, just for a name. He doesn’t look like a John. 

Seungkwan’s mom yells at him for four minutes for spending too much time at night by the lake, this is why you’re sick as a dog now, those woods are no good for soft-shelled boys like you – 

“I haven’t been to the lake in weeks. And I never go into the woods.”

“You are not leaving your room until you are completely cured.” 

The whole time her gently fussing fingers rake through his hair, go over his pulse points, brush his jawbone. The whole time Seungkwan counts her thinning brow hairs until his eyes sting and he has to close them. 

Later, he gets a compress to the forehead, a mouthful of bitter powder, and a firm order to lie in bed. 

“Why the fuck didn’t my life flash before my eyes?” he whispers, blanket tucked up to his chin because suddenly he’s freezing even though it’s twenty-nine going on thirty and humid outside. Sunlight seeps warm through his blanket but he can’t be bothered to draw the curtains. 

The medicine knocks him out soon after.

When he awakes for the third time in two days that evening, it’s to lots of sweat and voices floating up the thin ceiling. He wobbles out of bed and down the stairs. 

Two heads turn at his arrival by the staircase. John Doe is wearing a different t-shirt. Orange. His mouth fixes itself into a small smile.

“Mom let you in?” 

In Seungkwan’s mom’s hands is a bowl tightly sealed with foggy cling wrap. Her brow is raised. “Are you all better?” 

“Fit as a fiddle.” Seungkwan squints at John. “Did you lie and tell her you were my friend?”

John’s face stiffens. “No.” 

“So you told her what happened?” 

“Yes.” 

Seungkwan shrugs. “Well, it’s true, Mother, I fainted.” 

“I don’t need to hear it twice,” she replies curtly, moving to the kitchen. 

“What’s in the bowl?” Seungkwan asks. 

“Stew from your friend. We’ll talk later.” 

Seungkwan perches himself on the edge of the couch, heaving a breath. “I might just fall asleep on you.” 

There’s the sound of the creaky cabinet door being opened and closed, the rattle of the cutlery drawer, and then the thump of the fridge. She is most likely about to chop up some fruits. Seungkwan knows how much she doesn’t like doing things for guests. 

“Where’s…” 

“Out. A friend’s birthday party, I think.”

“Ah, to be young and not depressed.”

“Mingyu,” she calls out, “do you want anything to drink?”

His voice doesn’t belong in the house. Isn’t part of it. “No, I’m alright.” 

“Sure?”

“Yes. Thank you.” 

The way he straightens his back reminds Seungkwan of puppets and something else. His hands are wrung red, face bright and still. He crosses his arms over his chest. Hovering. A plane struggling to land. 

“Sit down, will you?” Seungkwan says, and Mingyu finally meets his eyes. 

He doesn’t look like a Mingyu either.

Mingyu settles on the couch opposite Seungkwan. His wide hands are clasped over the top of his knees, kneading slow. One of them flies up to his mouth, briefly, and Seungkwan hears the small click of teeth finding home on a thumbnail. 

“You’re not wearing your ring.”

Mingyu takes the nail out of his teeth. “I was making stew, so I took it off,” he explains. “It was expensive.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Maybe. It was a birthday present.”

“That’s nice.”

Mingyu stretches his fingers out. “Yeah. It is, isn’t it? Even if it’s from an ex?”

“Oh.”

Seungkwan’s mom quietly placing a bowl of fruits on the coffee table, all cut up and peeled. Mingyu’s soft and enthusiastic, “I love melons.” Two small plastic forks the colour of yesterday’s horizon gently pierced into two pieces. 

_11:43 P.M, SEPTEMBER 1998_

“No, listen, listen… you hear that? It goes ___da-da-dada-da___ –”

“Whatever! Whatever.” Mingyu’s beer-buzzed. He’s louder and makes grand gestures with his hands when he’s three and a half bottles in. He tips the empty bottle back, neck craned towards the stars. And then he groans, and mumbles to himself, “Do we have more? We totally have more,” and hops off the hood of the pick-up to go to the back.

Seungkwan plays the song from the top. He’s sober because someone has to drive them back. “ _ _ _Da-da-dada-da___. See? You never fucking listen.” 

Crickets chirp smooth over the trumpets, over Mingyu’s raspy humming, over the clink of bottles. Grass rustles underneath the wheels, stretching itself for spring. 

“Ha!” Mingyu exclaims, right in Seungkwan’s ear. “There’s one more at the end there. ___Da-da-dada-da-___ da _ _ _.___ ”

Seungkwan snatches the unopened bottle out of Mingyu’s hand and glares. Mingyu glares back. Seungkwan snorts. 

“What?”

Seungkwan cups his jaw, just because he can. “Nothing.” 

There’s rules and stuff about this. Rules of the heart and the head, rules that allow and prohibit, rules that consider and reconsider. Rules that sit idly on the fence.

_Okay, but…_

_Yes, but…_

_Sure, but…_

Seungkwan’s a stickler for rules and Mingyu won’t be here forever. What’ll happen if you start something you know will end?

Nothing. 

He shoves, and Mingyu stumbles, toppling onto the grass. 

“What…”

Seungkwan hops off to return the bottle to the back. He makes a note to get rid of these before Mom finds them. “I’m done.” 

Mingyu lies down on the grass. “Lame.” 

Seungkwan eyes him, putting the bottles back into the rings. “Comfy?” 

Mingyu stretches an arm out, giving him a silent look.

As much as he sticks to the rules, Seungkwan reads the fine print as well.

_6:50 P.M, JULY 1998_

The dead body of a boy lies on a pile of detritus. It’s been maybe fifteen minutes. A centipede crawls quietly over his palm and a camera lens lying by his shin. 

Seungkwan used to joke about how people probably went here to disappear. The wind sighs and the trees rustle in reply. A droplet of rain falls onto his slightly parted lips. 

Soon, it pours.

_1:19 P.M, NOVEMBER 1998_

“I’m gonna make tea,” Mingyu announces. “Is that okay?” 

Seungkwan blinks at the yellow fabric hung up in front of one of the windows in the living room. It’s huge; covers most of the white wall behind it. The low afternoon sun makes it a little golden, a little orange. 

He says tea is fine. He also tells Mingyu his house looks very lived in.

“I do live here. Thank your mom for the melon, by the way. It’s huge.” 

“We’ve got plenty. For some reason.” 

The inside of Mingyu’s home doesn’t scream anything in particular. It doesn’t speak, either. It simply stands. Neat shelves, neat everything; it’s clear he doesn’t clean up for guests only. Every object is sure of its place: the pillows on the couch and the magnets lined up on the fridge; the sticky notes on a corkboard; the shoes pushed against the wall by the front door; the chairs pushed into the dining table; the ceramic figurines of people twisted into various yoga poses. 

“Calms you down, right?” Moments later, Mingyu hands Seungkwan his tea. He is tinted citrine. So is the ceiling fan above him. His eyes gleam fondly. “It wasn’t meant to be used in that way.” 

The yellow fabric seems to whisper sweet things back.

“You didn’t have to invite me in,” Seungkwan says. This time it’s him that can’t meet Mingyu’s gaze. It’s the sun, hitting him in all the right places. “But I’ll stay.”

“You’ll stay?”

Seungkwan blows into the drink. “Where’d you get that thing?”

Mingyu rubs his knuckles. “It was from a market in Florence about... two years ago? I wanted to make a shirt or pants or something. But then I decided it’d look way better hung up. So I hung it up, and I was right.” He pauses. “It’s weird, I guess, carrying around a piece of fabric everywhere I go.” 

Seungkwan takes a careful sip. “I have a feeling you’re not gonna be here for long.” 

Mingyu crosses his arms over his chest. “Who knows, really.” 

“Sounds like a yes.”

“I ended up living in Prague for three years. I fell in love completely, not knowing anything about it. I never know until I do.” 

A string tugs Seungkwan backwards and makes him stop, but he fights it. Things slip out when they’re meant to slip out. “I’ve always wanted to get out of here myself.” 

He does not ask then why don’t you? He doesn’t say a thing. He simply hums and nods. Seungkwan looks at him and it’s a rush of blood to the head – a rush of ringing to the ears. 

_???, ??? 1998_

Mingyu is brash words behind warm giggles and handsome flashes of teeth, but he’s also attentive and a little nervous. He slurs his sentences together when something excites him. He speaks like he’s explaining diagrams. 

Seungkwan could spend hours trying to figure him out, but while combing through Mingyu’s hair to get rid of tiny yellow flower buds, flashes of crooked teeth and nose-bridge scrunches in his way, he forgets to.

_8:55 P.M, JULY 1998_

Seungkwan is on a bed, but it’s not his. Mingyu is smiling at him funnily, warily, sat on a chair.

“We have to stop meeting like this.”

He lies back down, frowning, remembering. Dead leaves and bugs. The stillness of the lake. Humid air. A splitting headache.

“How’d you…”

“Your secret place isn’t as secretive as you think it is.” Mingyu helps prop him up, then holds a glass of water to his mouth. Seungkwan pushes it away even though his throat feels like sandpaper and cotton. 

“You go there too?”

“No. I happened to be there today when I found you. Luckily. I wasn't going to go down that way, but –” The quick way Mingyu blinks while he speaks – on the third one Seungkwan hears a ringing, kind and terrified. 

Seungkwan drinks the water and thinks about what it’s like seeing someone die twice.

“Luck doesn’t exist,” he says, after a moment, listening to the neighbourhood kids ring their bikes and play tag outside.

The sun touches Mingyu’s cheeks just right when he fixes Seungkwan a look. The ache in Seungkwan’s chest comes back. “Maybe I’m just the world’s luckiest guy.”

“Yeah right,” Seungkwan says. “Maybe I am.” 

Over the blanket, Mingyu’s palm rests firm on Seungkwan’s knee. “Whatever. I’m just glad I found you again.” 

_3:31 P.M, DECEMBER 1998_

It’s late afternoon and the world is saturated with rain, and when a voice says, “Found you,” familiarly out of breath, Seungkwan laughs out of surprise more than anything.

“Do not sneak up on me like that.” He glances at Mingyu’s briefcase, brown leather with stickers all over fading in some places. “You’re really leaving?”

Mingyu pushes his hair out of his eyes before Seungkwan can think of wanting to do it for him. “I was on my way to the station and took a detour. I had a feeling you were gonna be here.” 

There’s a shine in Mingyu’s gaze. Somehow, Seungkwan knows what he really wanted to say.

“Will you come back?” Seungkwan asks. 

“Will I find you?”

“You might.” Seungkwan squints up at the sky. “Damn rain.” 

Mingyu does as well. “Damn rain.” 

A pigeon roosts on a power line with the others. A man huffily peels wet newspaper off his unpolished leather sole. The train whistles a deep note. 

“That’s probably you,” Seungkwan says. 

“You’re not going to wish me safe travels?” 

“Safe travels.” 

“Doesn’t sound genuine.” Hurt passes through Mingyu’s face. It pulls a laugh out of Seungkwan. 

The train hoots again.

Mingyu tightens his hold on his briefcase. “I’ll see you.” 

Seungkwan waves his fingers, loving how Mingyu looks in the rain, swearing he’ll never forget and someday forgive him for not wanting to be found.

Somewhere, there is a light ringing sound, much like a bicycle, and yet not at all.

_5:03 P.M, JULY 2006_

“Stupid stairs,” Seungkwan mutters, adjusting the press of his vest. He brushes his fingers through his hair once, twice, and remembers a distant summer where he spent ten minutes brushing them through someone else’s. 

Being twenty-eight sucks but Seungkwan’s determined to keep straddling that line between young and old. It’s probably why he has decided to do babysitting on the side. His coworker Soonyoung told him Wow, that’s awesome, and Soonyoung’s neighbour Hansol who Seungkwan has never seen not wearing a psychedelic-printed top gave him a simple You look like you know how to handle kids. Seungkwan sighed.

Today’s customer is somewhat of a doozy. He does not quite remember their name. The apartment building is bricks and stairs and when Seungkwan knocked on door three-two-one three minutes ago his heart was pounding like mad.

He knocks again. Time is running away. Seungkwan thinks of doing so as well. But then, a voice, faint –

“Coming!” 

The click of the door unlocking; the inwards swing of it – 

"Hi. Sorry. Thanks for waiting." – and there's a small smile on a face, and a name, rolling in like a wave, almost there, just at the top of Seungkwan's lungs. "I just finished making tea."

"I just got here."

And the face, it has appeared and reappeared so many times, seemingly endlessly, passing through brunches and dinners in the city, chats with people, bus stops – right as snow, and as rain, and as lakes.

His shirt is wrinkled and unbuttoned, collar popped from where he has yanked a tie off. "Well, come in."

A ringing, a ringing, a ringing ache. Seungkwan steps inside.


End file.
